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Joseph Blanes, missing since Sept. 19, has died. The Glen Ridge Police Department coordinated a wide-scale search for the 35-year-old Glen Ridge resident. |
After a weeks-long search, Joseph Blanes — the young man missing since Sept. 19 — was found in the last week.
According to police, Blanes died on Sept.
20. Other details were being withheld by the police, according to Police
Chief John Magnier.
He stated that no more information was being released, “as per the
family’s request,” because Blanes’ entire family was to be notified
before the circumstances of his death were to be made public.
The discovery ended a search that spanned several towns and involved a
flier campaign to try and get information about sightings of Blanes. He
was last seen on Sept. 19 boarding a NJ Transit bus at Dodd Street and
Midland Avenue in East Orange.
Thirty-five-year-old Blanes was born in Orange. He grew up in Glen Ridge
and went through the borough school system. A graduate of Lafayette
College, Blanes was also a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
Blanes spent several years working for Euro Brothers as a bond broker in
the World Trade Center. After several years there, however, he moved to
Spain to pursue his international business master’s degree.
Shortly thereafter, many of his colleagues
back at Euro were killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Distraught, he
returned to the United States, and secured another steady job as a bond
broker, this time for Prebon Energy in New York City.
But after only a short time, he lost his best friend to a brain tumor. So
he returned to Spain to complete the master’s degree.
But then the effects of modern terrorism found him yet again, with the
Madrid train bombings occurring a few blocks away from his apartment. He
returned home to Glen Ridge.
According to O’Boyle Funeral Home’s press release, Blanes had a
patriotic passion for his country and also for classical music,
particularly the works of Ernest Hemingway — which generally reveled in
the Spanish culture, for which he shared a passion.
The wake was Wednesday at O’Boyle
Funeral Home in Bloomfield. The funeral will be today at 10 a.m. at Holy
Name Church in East Orange.
Blanes is survived by his parents, a sister and brother, and a
grandmother. The family requests that donations be made to the National
Alliance on Mental Illness, in lieu of flowers.